Brown River Queen cover art

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Contest Begins NOW -- Ready, Set, Go!

Every now and then I run a contest.

Usually I give away a signed book, or a Camaro. Okay, I usually give away a signed book. If I had a Camaro I'd probably keep it.

But this time, the grand prize is an actual item from my book, All the Paths of Shadow. Specifically, it's a wand, one of the many stored in the dark recesses of the Royal Thaumaturgic Laboratory of the Kingdom of Tirlin.

What kind of wand, you ask?

Well, in technical terms, it's a Class IV free-field linear thaumic emitter, with a resonant dispersion signature of 30 mT and a lateral discharge angle of 160 degrees. But that's only relevant if you're a licensed thaumaturgical practitioner, and if you look in the Yellow Pages you'll find exactly zero entries in that field of arcane endeavor.

So I'll let the photos do the talking. Here it is, Prolep's Capacious Latch, created in 987 by Prolep himself:

I know. they just don't make 'em like that anymore, do they? You've got brass, you've got copper, you've got oak -- it's a work of art.

Here's a closer look:

The wand shows a lot of wear and signs of use, but hey, it's nearly six hundred years old.

Look above for a close-up of the wand's inductive regulators and coronal discharge arrays. All hand-made by magelamp, well before the advent of the Magic-Industrial Revolution.

Old Prolep was an artist! No jamming conductors any which way into an old broom-handle, not him. His windings were always precise and orderly.

The wand is about 22 inches long (for my metric friends, that's about 56 cm). Mage Meralda assures me it has been completely discharged of all active thaumaturgic energies, so you don't have to worry about accidentally turning the mailman into a toad.

This is a hand-made, one of a kind item. And I'm giving it away, partly out of the goodness of my heart (you, over there, stop snickering) and partly to promote my book, All the Paths of Shadow.

But Frank, you ask, how do I enter?

It couldn't be easier. Keep reading, and act thusly!

CONTEST RULES

1) Enter by emailing Frank at franktuttle@franktuttle.com. Put the words WAND CONTEST in the subject line. If you win I'll use that email address to ask where you want the wand shipped.

2) Enter by leaving a review of All the Paths of Shadow at Amazon, Amazon UK, or Barnes and Noble. Now, you don't have to leave a review to enter. You don't even have to leave a good review. Any review qualifies. You can just email me as stated above. But if you do leave a review, that counts as an entry. If you email me and leave a review at one of the sites stated, that will count as TWO entries, so you just doubled your odds. I have to be able to contact you somehow based on your reviewer info, so make sure there's at least an email addy associated with it! If I can't see a way to contact you, I'll move on to another name.

3) You must enter between Sunday January 22, 2012 and midnight CST Sunday February 5, 2012. I will announce the winner here on my blog, on my Frank Tuttle Facebook page, and on the All the Paths of Shadow Facebook page the next day (Monday, February 6, 2012).

I will choose the winning entry by printing out all the email addresses or other contact info, cutting them into single pieces, putting them all in a special-purpose metal container (i.e., an empty coffee can), and drawing the lucky winner out with whatever appendage seems most convenient at the time.

So, enter! Email me at franktuttle@franktuttle.com. Put WAND CONTEST in the subject line. Or go leave a review on Amazon or Barnes&Noble. Do both. Do one. But do it now, before the passing parade we call Life gets in the way and you forget and two weeks from now you read that someone else has won and you spend your remaining days weeping and sobbing, crying out in a loud voice "Why, why, WHY?"